


Expansion Pack

by 131DI



Category: Wreck-It Ralph (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, expanding on movie canon, i wrote this in 2012, or expansion as it were, slight canon alterations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-22 08:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16594238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/131DI/pseuds/131DI
Summary: Some time ago, I saw concept art that had Felix and the Sarge fighting off Cy-bugs together after they find Ralph's crashed lander in Sugar Rush. What started as a small fix-it (har) for that scene (to replace the laffy taffy sand pit sequence) turned into a sort of expansion/retelling of parts of the film. This is that.





	Expansion Pack

**Author's Note:**

> The re-posting of this fic is dedicated to my buddy Andante. She's been a treasure and we had some absolutely wild fun when the first movie came out. Kisses! ♡

'Intense' was definitely the best word to describe the sergeant. Though she’d relented on allowing him to accompany her, Felix hadn’t heard a peep out of her yet. At least, nothing directed at him. Occasionally she’d mumble to herself, but otherwise made no acknowledgement of his presence. She was focused straight ahead, and didn’t even flinch when the sunlight struck them after emerging from the tunnel. Felix put up a hand to shield his eyes, blinking a few times to adjust. Before his vision returned to normal, he became aware of a subtle sweetness hanging in the air. It was a pretty vague scent, but he was sure there was a touch of coconut and caramel in there. Breathing in left him with a slight taste of the same flavors on his tongue, and what felt like a tiny surge of energy.

“D’you feel that?” he asked the sergeant.

“Tiny sugar particles, most likely,” she replied. “Hm. Tastes like a snickers bar.”

Felix grinned. “Funny, didn’t taste any chocolate. Though it was more like coconut-”

“Is that really important right now?” Calhoun interrupted.

He shrank back, staring down at the intricate details of the cruiser below them. “No, ma’am.”

In the distance, Felix could hear the faint noises of a race going on: revving engines, some backfiring, a few particularly loud and high-pitched whoops and hollers. Strangely, other than the ambient race sound effects and the whipping wind, there was nothing. It was slightly unsettling, he had to admit. Even his home game had little forest critters. Here, he couldn’t hear or see anything. For such a sweet presentation, Sugar Rush sure had an uncomfortable vibe.

“I’ll say one thing, they don’t call your friend ‘Wreck-It’ for nothing.”

Calhoun’s words brought Felix back to attention, and he gasped quietly at the sight spread out in front of them. A long stretch of the forest had been utterly destroyed, sliced in half by a deep gouge into the ground. Pieces of the surrounding candy cane trees were scattered haphazardly, and chunks of the ground - Felix thought it looked a bit like dry chocolate cake - had been sprayed quite a ways on either side of the divide.

“There’s the shuttle,” came Calhoun’s voice again.

On the ridge at the end of the divide, the shuttle sat in a slightly smoking heap atop a small cliff. Fluffy pink fibers were stuck to its hull, as well as a striped paper cone. A quick glance to the sky revealed more of the same from the cotton candy clouds.

“Is that what brought it down? Jeepers.” Felix craned his neck to get a look at the floating puffs of candy in the sky. He wasn’t as familiar with vehicle operation as he was with architecture, but he knew enough to figure that stuffing a bunch of candy floss through a jet intake wasn’t the best for an engine.

“Mm,” was Calhoun’s curt response. She brought the cruiser to a halt a small distance from the shuttle, and they both hopped down to the ground.

The first thing Felix noticed was the strange lack of solidity. All around him, it felt spongy and springy, not at all like the rigid soil under the apartment complex. Sure, the ground was plenty hard enough and strong enough to support their weight, but it just felt… odd. In the back of his mind, he wondered how the bouncy nature of the dirt would affect one of his jumps.

Calhoun carefully advanced on the open shuttle, her rifle at the ready. Felix kept close, waiting for any sign of a cy-bug or his colleague. When the sergeant moved to aim inside the cockpit, however, she found nothing. She squinted and growled in frustration.

“No cy-bug, either,” she said. Felix wouldn’t have said it for fear of invoking her anger, but he swore there was the faintest tinge of fear in her voice. “We have to find that stowaway before it gets a chance to lay its eggs.”

“How long does it take?” asked Felix. He paused, then reconsidered. “And… well, doesn’t it take two to, uh… tango?”

Calhoun gave him an odd look. She held her rifle over her shoulder, and some sort of automatic mechanism latched onto it, securing it to her back. “No mating dance for these parasites, soldier. Every single one of them comes outta their pod with a belly full of eggs, ready to go.”

“Really?”

“Yes. That’s why it’s so dangerous to have one roaming loose. This place’ll be a candy-coated hell hole in no time.”

Felix stood with his back to the shuttle and swallowed nervously. He hadn’t even seen a cy-bug proper, and it was making him feel uneasy. His eyes stuck to the ground, settling on a piece of one of the trees that Ralph’s joy ride had struck. He bent down to pick it up and rolled it between his hands. It smelled pleasantly of peppermint.

“You said they eat anything, right? Even these? Can’t imagine all that sugar’s good for them.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re dumb machines, Fix-It. Not like you and me. If anything, that sugar might make things move along faster.”

“What?” Felix dropped the candy shard in alarm. It tumbled into the ditch near a small hole that looked a bit like a gopher den. “How much faster?”

“Not sure, and I could be wrong. Never had to consider it before.”

Felix sighed. Why did Ralph have to go and run off? All of this trouble, these cy-bugs…

“What a mess,” he thought aloud.

“To put it lightly.”

Calhoun produced a small device from somewhere on her suit and started tapping buttons. A frustrated hiss came from her a short while later.

“Somethin’ wrong, ma’am?”

“Whatever it is we’re tasting in the air is screwing with my tracker,” she explained. “I can’t get any clear readings.”

Felix put a hand to his chin in thought. “Is there any other way to track them?”

“They tend to eat like a swarm of locusts, leaving nothing in their wake… so if you see large patches of horrible devastation, you’re usually on the right trail.”

“…oh.”

As the sergeant continued to fuss with her device, Felix’s eyes wandered around the scenery before him. Pools of sticky liquid taffy gathered around the base of the tallest of the candy trees, and strange sweet crackers covered partly in chocolate stuck out of the ponds in bunches. Felix had no idea what the skinny sticks could possibly be called, but they looked a lot like cattails. Spread out below the cliff was an extensive field of what appeared to be cocoa powder flats, dotted by oversized gumdrops and bits of hard candies to create a pathway. More of the striped trees sprouted up from the ground (these appeared to be made out of a more flexible taffy rather than candy canes), as well as tiny red and pink lollipops in place of grass. The whole place carried a very surreal feeling, and the lack of green anything on the ground was downright bizarre. No, all the green this place had to offer was either up in the sky, or in the water. Felix found himself wishing he was back in his more familiar blocky 8-bit environment, away from this saccharine topsy-turvy world.

A loud snap made him jerk his head towards the sergeant, and the back of his neck twanged uncomfortably. He rubbed it gingerly as he looked for the source of the sound, and saw that Calhoun was also on edge. Her hand was hovering over the pistol attached to the thigh of her armor, and she’d gone still as a statue. When no other noises met their ears, she relaxed- but only slightly.

Felix eyed the sergeant up and down, frowning. Being so tense all the time couldn’t have been good for her health, but if she was programmed for it… He shrugged and tried to find something else interesting to look at, but his gaze kept settling back on her. The detail on her armor was astounding, from the scratches and faded corners of the protective plating, to the flexible woven mesh that covered the more mobile sections of her body. Calhoun took that moment to turn around and idly observe her companion, at which Felix felt a pang of guilt. He’d been rudely staring at her - especially the curve of her back, because goodness, she sure had quite a shape to her - all this time, and the slight scowl on her face seemed to indicate she was completely aware. Felix made a move to apologize, but his eyes locked on something just past the sergeant, freezing him in place. His mouth went dry, and his heart started to race.

Behind the sergeant at about fifty paces was a cy-bug.

The terror on his face must have clued her in, for Calhoun slowly moved her hand back to her pistol. Felix saw fear flicker over her features, but she was holding up a lot better than he was. He backed up into the shuttle’s hull, panic starting to set in. He’d never had to confront anything worse than Ralph’s discarded bricks, or a fall from one of the windowsills… all in a game where it would ultimately do no harm. A mistimed jump here could easily spell a much more terrifying Game Over for him, and the cy-bug slowly approaching them was a very real threat.

“M-ma’am?” he choked, eyes fixed on the cy-bug. “What do we do?”

More sets of those horrible faceted LCD eyes came into view from out of the forest, and Felix could hear the chattering of their metal mandibles as they drew closer.

“Stay close, and watch your head,” Calhoun said quietly.

With an ear-splitting shriek, the first cy-bug Felix spotted lunged at them, its bright wings crackling to life from the stumps on its back. Calhoun rolled out of the way at the last moment, and the massive bug’s claws scraped roughly at the thick frosting where she had been standing. It hissed and flipped around, searching for its misplaced target. Its comrades chose to stay ground-bound, but sprang to life nonetheless.

“Sergeant!” Felix called out, pointing at one of their attackers.

She whirled on her heel and shot the cy-bug point-blank with her pistol, sending it spiraling backwards. It howled in pain, scratching at its damaged face with one of its front claws.

The airborne cy-bug now focused on Felix, its attention drawn by his shout. It darted towards him with lightning speed, but thankfully the tiny handyman was quicker. If there was anything he could count on, it was years of leaping from floor to floor of an apartment complex to build up his stamina. He might not have been the strongest person in the arcade, but only a few were faster. This sudden burst of speed seemed to confuse the cy-bug, and its double-take would’ve been comical in any other setting.

“Fix-It, pay attention!”

Calhoun’s warning came just as another one of the cy-bugs lashed out with its hard light tail, aiming for Felix’s legs. A jump cleared the bug’s frame effortlessly, though a claw just barely nicked the bottom of one of Felix’s boots, throwing off his arc. He tumbled to the ground, nowhere near as graceful as the sergeant with his landing. He hissed in pain- the landing had jarred his shoulder pretty badly, leaving it with a throbbing ache. A quick glance up at the sergeant revealed she had worse problems, however.

Four - now three, a shot nailed one of them right between the eyes - of the six cy-bugs were circling her, snapping and slashing away. The smallest of the group snuck up on her, sweeping the floor with its tail. Calhoun lost her footing and went crashing to the ground at just such an angle where her rifle became dislodged from her back. It clattered away from her, coming to a stop at some point between them. Felix heard her swear as she tried to scramble for the gun, but one of the airborne bugs took the opportunity to snatch her right off the ground.

“Miss Calhoun!” Felix shouted, heart leaping into his throat. His eyes darted back and forth from the gun to her, and how rapidly the cy-bug holding her was ascending.

Without a second thought, he dashed forward and scooped the rifle up from the ground, steadied it as carefully as he could with his badly shaking hands, and fired. The blast knocked him off his feet, and the rifle butt slammed hard into his already injured shoulder. A loud crunch, followed by a grunt of exertion from the sergeant, told him that he’d hit his mark just in time. He sat up and peered over to the sparking wreckage of the cy-bug, and saw Calhoun standing atop the twisted metal. She steadied herself for a moment, then met Felix’s gaze. A small smile had graced her lips, and Felix felt his heart flutter.

His victory moment was short-lived, cut off by a painful strike to his arm once again - what was with these bugs and going after his shoulder? - that sent him sprawling back to the ground. The back of his head struck the ground particularly hard, dazing him, and he blindly groped for the rifle. A sharp claw found its way to his arm, cutting through and pinning him down. It took a moment for him to register what had just happened, but as soon as the pain reached him, he let out a panicked scream. The cy-bug above him lowered its gnashing jaws, its mandibles inches away from his throat-

\- and a blast from Calhoun’s pistol blew its metal head clean off. Its hulking body creaked and collapsed to the left, dragging the claw out of his arm. Felix clutched the wound, terrified. He’d never felt anything quite like this before, and he was sure of one thing: he hated it.

“You all right, soldier?” Calhoun asked, standing protectively over him.

“I.. n-no, it got me on my arm,” he said weakly. His whole arm burned with the sensation, and his free hand was trembling terribly.

“We’ll get you patched up in a minute. Can you still use that gun?”

Felix looked at the rifle, then back at Calhoun. He’d have to switch which side he rested it on, but he could do it. He nodded briskly.

“Then let’s get to it.”

The remaining cy-bugs circled around them, hissing and chattering. Felix backed up until he could feel the curve of the sergeant’s legs against him, stole a glance up at her stony expression, then fired.

The next few minutes went by in a blur of color, dulled by pain and the loud shouting from the sergeant. She yanked Felix to the side once or twice rather roughly to keep him out of harm’s way, but he eventually departed from the safe bubble his mind had established around them. The final cy-bug, crippled from a well-timed shot from Calhoun, tried to scuttle away from them in fear. Felix put it down with a burst round, and the infernal creature finally stilled. He nudged it with his boot, ready for it to spring back to life, but the animal was definitely dead.

“That was some impressive shooting, Fix-It.”

“Just… just tryin’ to do what’s right, ma’am. Couldn’t let that bug take a bite out of you.”

There was that little smile again. Felix blushed and stared hard at the ground, and his attention was caught by a curious sight. Next to his boots was the most peculiar little droplet, he noticed, colored light blue and freckled with… numbers? Data?

“What in the world?” came Calhoun’s voice. She must have seen the strange liquid, too, and she kneeled down to take a look. She dipped the tips of her fingers into it, and drew it back up to smear against her thumb.

Felix discovered its source first, and he dropped the rifle in horror. Where the cy-bug had cut into his arm, there was now a hole.

A _hole_.

_In his arm_.

From it leaked a mix of light and dark blue, a jumble of color and data-- raw code. It dripped down the length of his arm, leaving streaks of the logic-defying static colored liquid behind.

“Oh. O-oh my land. Oh gracious, what… what-” Felix stammered, unable to form a proper sentence. His legs felt weak, and his knees buckled beneath him. He turned his hand over, and sure enough, there was a smeared splatter of the same blue data all over the palm of his glove.

“Looks like it got you pretty good," said Calhoun. "Nothing we can’t patch up, though.”

Felix was too stunned by this utter upheaval in his world to properly hear what the sergeant had said. He was _bleeding_.

“Judging by that look, nothing like this has ever happened to you before. Am I right?”

He numbly shook his head.

“Huh. Guess you wouldn’t bleed red, would you?”

He stared at Calhoun. “What?”

“In Hero’s Duty, you see blood all the time. We’re programmed with it." She gesticulated as she spoke, then pointed at Felix. "You, on the other hand, come from a cutesy little 8-bit world. All puffy clouds and big-eyed sprites. Nothing worse than a flicker. So, you don’t have any.”

There was an uncomfortable weight to Calhoun’s words. Felix stared at his arm, suddenly feeling rather hollow.

“Looks like it works the same, in any case.”

Felix reached for his hammer, missing the handle once in his shaky state. It could fix up the damage.

He hoped.

A light tap to the wounded area produced an immediate effect, and the hole vanished. A lingering soreness still persisted, but Felix could handle that. Anything but the shooting pain that the hole had caused.

“Well how about that,” said Calhoun, sounding honestly impressed. “You really can fix anything.”

“It… it comes in handy,” replied Felix, a tremor in his voice.

“…look, soldier,” Calhoun said after a short silence, kneeling down by him once again. “I know how it feels, getting that first shot on the battlefield. It makes you really think. You just got a double dose, since out here-” she made a sweeping gesture at Sugar Rush, “-there’s no safety net.”

Felix stood and straightened his shirt, returning his hammer to its resting place on his belt.

“But all things considered… not bad.”

Her compliment sent a wave of warmth over him, and he returned the small grin she’d sported earlier. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Calhoun stood to her full height and moved to investigate the smoking corpses of the cy-bugs. She kicked one of them with considerable force, gritting her teeth. She muttered something under her breath, then examined the hard shells the bugs now sported.

“Never thought that candy would make good armor,” she mused. She rapped the pink and yellow casing with her knuckles, producing a very solid sound. “That stuff’s tough. Not tough enough to resist fire, but still a hazard. If they were any bigger, we might’ve run into a real problem.”

A real problem? Felix couldn’t believe what she was saying. How was what they’d just gone through not a real problem? He couldn’t feel any anger towards her, just shock. He had to keep reminding himself that this was her day, every single day, for her entire life, short as that was at the moment.

“We have to find where they’ve set up shop, and clear out that nest.”

Felix absently rubbed his arm as he watched the sergeant return to the shuttle.

“Think you can fix this wreck?”

He brightened up, happy to find a way back into his comfort zone. He was always happiest when he was confronted with a break, a leak, a missing windowpane, or even a busted shuttle - things he could fix.

“Can do!” he said confidently.

“Good. The sooner we get airborne, the better.”

They opened up a hatch on the side of the shuttle and peered inside to inspect the damage. It was awfully complicated, and in truth it intimidated poor Felix just a bit, but he knew he could handle it. Strands of the pink cotton candy fibers were visible even from here, and he winced. That would take some time to get out before he could put his magic hammer to use.

“We’ll need to clear out the engine and the jet intake,” he said, not taking his eyes off the panel. “After that, this should be easy peasy.”

Calhoun raised an eyebrow. “You’re an old-fashioned little guy, aren’t you?”

“Old-fashioned?” Felix repeated. “I… s’pose so. It’s in my code to be a gentleman, ma’am. Always ready to help.”

“It’s nice. You don’t see it every day. Not anymore.”

Felix was sure his cheeks were turning red. “Well gosh. Thank you, ma’am.”

“You can just call me Calhoun, you know. You’re not one of my platoon. ‘Ma’am’ is for them.”

“Oh. All right then, ma- uh. Miss Calhoun.”

She chuckled, and oh, Felix could barely contain a lovesick smile.

“Close enough.”

The work went by pretty quickly, with Calhoun easily taking orders from the pint-sized handyman. Felix sat at the side panel, giving gentle taps to the wiring and scorched inner plating, mending it piece by piece. He could see the sergeant fretting with the sticky fibers on her gloves out of the corner of his eye, and he barely managed to hold in a laugh. She was so out of her element, and there was something charming about the way she was still keeping up her hard presentation.

Soon after, the remaining bits of candy floss had been cleared away, and the intake appeared to be ready for a test. Felix gave the hull a hearty strike, and a small jingle could be heard. A dull thrum started up from inside the shuttle, and he signaled to Calhoun to give the engine a go. She did as instructed, and the angular escape pod roared to life. The only thing different, Felix noticed, was that the exhaust had a distinct sparkle to it, as well as a pink tinge.

As the sergeant said, close enough.

He hopped up to the rim of the cockpit and carefully slid inside, settling into the side of the rather small space. The folded up cruiser took up the other area across from him, leaving little space between him and the pilot’s chair. He crossed his legs politely and kept his hands to himself, content to watch Calhoun expertly maneuver the shuttle away from its crash zone and up into the air. He stole a glance out of the window as they flew higher, amazed with how fast they were already going. It was very quiet for a long while, with Calhoun staring intently at the scanner. Several very long minutes trudged by, only interrupted by the occasional flipping of a switch, or pressing of a button. Felix had almost drifted off when he finally heard something else.

“Nice work, Fix-It,” Calhoun said, disturbing the silence.

“Just doin’ my job,” Felix replied modestly after sitting up straight.

“How’s your arm?”

Felix touched the spot where the hole had been. “Feeling much better, ma- Miss Calhoun. You didn’t get any cuts, did you?”

She seemed amused with his concern, but waved it off. “This armor’s good for something.”

“It’s impressive armor,” Felix said. “It looks nice on you.”

Calhoun turned her head, a wider smile spreading across her face.

“Uh. If that’s all right to say. I didn’t mean anything by it, of course,” Felix hastily backpedaled. “Just saying that you’ve got a nice look! The black really accentuates- er--”

Felix hadn’t noticed his hands gesticulating while he talked, and they wound up roughly chest height. Horrified, he quickly dropped them to his lap, wishing he’d never opened his mouth.

“At ease, soldier,” chided Calhoun softly. “Your face is a little red.”

Felix chuckled nervously. “I… hah. That’s just my natural honey glow, miss.”

“’Honey glow,’” repeated Calhoun plainly.

“I… it’s just a feelin’. And you- it-” Felix fumbled his words. His stomach was twisting in knots, and his tongue was refusing to cooperate. He took a breath and steeled himself. “If I might be honest, you give it to me somethin’ awful.”

In the reflection of the shuttle’s glass, Felix saw her face soften slightly.

“I probably shouldn’t even be saying this,” Felix continued, “I only just met you. But I’ve never seen anybody like you before.”

As he watched her reflection, he could’ve sworn she looked almost… sad.

“A-and I have to say- you are one dynamite gal.”

As the last word rolled off his tongue, an icy cold pit of regret formed in his gut. Immediately Calhoun’s expression changed to a deep scowl, and Felix saw her hands tighten on the controls of the shuttle. He opened his mouth to speak, but was suddenly thrown against the side of the cockpit as the shuttle went into a sharp barrel roll and nosedive. As abruptly as the maneuver had come about, it stopped, slamming him back into the narrow space on the floor. The canopy opened with a hiss, and suddenly one of Calhoun’s gloved hands was on his shoulder, giving him a light shove.

“Get out,” she said in a low voice.

“Wh-” Felix’s jaw dropped. “What- I didn’t- all I said was-”

“I said get out!” Calhoun shouted, looking off to the side and jerking her thumb over her shoulder to the open space.

It was like a slap to the face. Felix held his hands up in a motion of surrender, palms towards the sergeant, and carefully vaulted himself over the side of the cockpit. As soon as he hit the ground, the engine crackled to life again, and the shuttle was halfway across the small valley in a blink. He watched as the dark shape disappeared over a hill crest and out of sight, then sighed.

What was wrong with what he said? Had he gone too far? All he wanted to do was compliment the sergeant. She was an absolutely lovely woman, and he felt like she should know it, but… maybe she didn’t want to hear it. At least, not from him.

Felix stared ahead of him. On the top of the highest hill was a castle, and he was at the bottom of a winding pathway. If there was anyone who would know whether Ralph was still here or not, or how to find the errant cy-bugs, they’d be in that castle.

“Jiminy jaminy…”

The hike took a bit longer than it would’ve normally, due to Felix’s slow pace. He kept his eyes on the ground for most of the way, looking at the tiny granules of sugar cane that lined the pathway, or listening to the way it crunched under his boots. The faint metallic tinkling of his hammer bumping against the rivets on his belt was the only other noise he registered, his mind elsewhere.

He should’ve kept his mouth shut. She was just being polite and friendly. He shouldn’t have said anything to her at all. Honey glows and dynamite gal? Felix slapped his forehead with the ball of his palm. He’d meant well, but he should’ve been listening to the right head. They were there to find Ralph and the cy-bugs, not for him to ogle at the sergeant. He should’ve stayed professional… but she seemed like she’d enjoyed his silly heartfelt chatter. The shift in mood was so sudden…

Only when the chocolate welcome mat came into view did Felix realize he’d made it to the castle doors. With another sigh, he reached out to the twisted paper handle of the lollipop door knocker, knocked three times, then backed off politely. He removed his hat and stood patiently, hoping someone would at least be able to help him find his missing colleague. He wasn’t keen on having to go through any more disappointment.

“Myes?” a deep voice answered as the door cracked open.

Felix looked down - a nice change, for once - and saw what looked like a living gobstopper standing in front of him. No limbs, just a small round body, and floating hands and feet that resembled jelly beans. Was this really what the other denizens of Sugar Rush looked like? He mentally grimaced and thanked the programmers of Fix-It Felix, Jr. for not taking such liberal choices with his own game.

“I’m Fix-It Felix, Jr., sir, from the game, Fix-It Felix, Jr. I… I’ve been searching for my colleague, Ralph. A big fella, ‘bout nine feet tall. Red hair-”

“Ralph?” the green candy man stated. “Wreck-It Ralph?”

A spark of hope. Finally!

“Yes! Yes, that’s him! So he’s been here?”

“Hmph. Should’ve put him away while we had the chance,” the man muttered, reaching to his side behind the other closed door. “Not gonna make the same mistake with you.”

Felix barely had time to even look at the gobstopper funny before the floor dropped away underneath him, sending him tumbling down a hidden shaft. The doormat closed off the shaft above him, plunging him into darkness as he fell. His voice echoed through the small space, ringing in his ears, and almost as quickly as the trap had been sprung, he collided painfully with rough, hard tiles. At least this time he hadn’t landed on his shoulder.

Rough hands seized him immediately, standing him up on his feet. Flat cookie-shaped creatures with long spears in their off hands were on either side of him, and they were none too gentle as they escorted him down the hall.

“Hey!” Felix protested, pulling against them. “Just what am I being thrown in here for? I didn’t do anything! I’m just trying to find Ralph!”

The cookie guards both gave him what Felix thought was a glare, but it was hard to tell, on account of them lacking proper faces.

“Please, I’m not supposed to be here! I need to find-”

A third guard appeared and gave Felix a firm smack on the back of his head, warning him to keep quiet. Felix shook the stars out of his eyes, hoping to get one last word in, but he was pushed in through a cell door in his blinded state. It slammed shut loudly behind him, followed by the click of a key in its lock. He grabbed hold of the bars - chocolate, maybe? - and peered through, but the guards were already leaving.

“Wait! Please, I just need to talk-”

A larger door closed at the end of the hallway, drowning out his voice. With the guards gone for the time being, it became very quiet. Slowly Felix loosened his grip on the bars, letting his arms fall limply to his sides. He backed away from the door and took a seat on the cot suspended on the wall, which was nothing more than an overly large strawberry wafer. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but then again, it was a prison. It wasn’t supposed to be. He tucked his legs close to his chest and set his forearms on top of his knees, then set his chin on top of his arm. His hammer made a tiny clicking noise as he shifted, and he glanced down.

He couldn’t fix this mess.

Pulling it from its loop, Felix tossed the golden tool to the floor. It bounced once, then clattered to a stop a few feet in front of him. He was powerless, locked away in a cell, and dreadfully sore. From the bruising on his stomach and tingling in his arm, to the ache in his heart, he was miserable.

For once in his life, Fix-It Felix, Jr. felt very, very small.

-

He didn’t know. There was no possible way for him to have known.

Tamora Calhoun stared long and hard at the display in front of her. No green blips surfaced on her radar, and hadn’t for the past few hours. She was getting tired of seeing no results, and her anger had long subsided. Now she was left with increasing fatigue and guilt. She turned her head to peer at the empty space to her right.

One dynamite gal… she sure didn’t feel like she was.

She couldn’t help the way she’d reacted. It struck just the right nerve, at just the wrong time. He was making her smile, making her laugh, giving her sweet compliments… she could tell he’d meant all of it from the bottom of his little 8-bit heart. No man would willingly admit to a woman that she gave him something as ridiculous as the “honey glows” unless he was struck dumb with love.

And she’d kicked him to the curb without so much as a goodbye.

Calhoun let out an aggravated sigh. She had to focus on what she came here to do. Find the cy-bug nest, destroy it, and keep Sugar Rush from being devoured. Simple enough. Too bad things had a tendency to get complicated.

Calhoun was many things. Among her facets, she was tough, she was reliable, and she was strong. Most of her troopers wouldn’t dare to give her sass, or challenge her on anything. Some would, and had, and learned their lesson right quick. She kept them in line, kept the players happy, and did her job. She’d only been at this a week or so, but she’d proven to be adept at everything her programmers intended her to be. In the weeks to come, she hoped to keep things as well-oiled as they were now, and set one hell of an example for any other rail shooter that found its way into Litwak’s arcade.

She was also a bit proud.

Not enough to be an insufferable jackass, but enough to keep her from admitting wrong-doings right out of the gate. She’d pretty much said so herself to Felix when he showed his face in Hero’s Duty, claiming Ralph had snuck by.

“Nothing gets past me,” she’d insisted. Infallible in her own game world. How could the shortstop even question that?

Who she thought was Markowski was acting very odd that entire session, even going so far as to abandon his regular spot in the deployment hangar, but Calhoun had let it slide. They had a tough job, and she’d seen him go out for drinks the night before. Soldiers could get burnt out frighteningly fast, and keeping their spirits up was one of the few ways to combat that, so it wasn’t the end of the world. But had she considered the fact that it wasn’t even her soldier under that mask in the first place? Not even for a moment. If she had, part of this budding catastrophe could’ve been avoided entirely, and it would just be a search for a wayward and weary villain, not a race against time. Ralph may have started the chain of events, but Calhoun held a share of the blame for not being able to put a stop to it when she should have.

A huge expanse of licorice was below her now, and the cockpit was starting to feel a bit too tight for her comfort. Calhoun found a neat spot to land the shuttle and disembark, hoping some travel on foot would help clear her head.

All of this candy was a little too sweet for her personal liking, and she was getting tired of tasting it in the air every time she breathed in. She sucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth a few times in an attempt to get rid of the obnoxious flavors, but to no avail. It was nicer than the acrid smoke and musty dead feeling to the air back in Hero’s Duty, she supposed, but those awful conditions were what she was used to. She could handle being stuck in a sharp, bleak wasteland, because she was made to handle it. Here, she and the cy-bugs were the most alien thing Sugar Rush had ever seen, with cold, hard exteriors and deadly weapons.

Her tracker wasn’t performing any better than it was back in the candy cane forest, but Calhoun figured she might as well keep trying. It was bound to work sooner or later, right? She smacked it a few times with the heel of her hand, wishing that percussive maintenance could work as well for her as it did for Felix. …and then she smacked the side of her head for not thinking to ask him to fix her tracker. If they’d managed to get the shuttle working again, there was no reason to doubt his ability to make her tracker right as rain.

“Way to go, Calhoun,” she muttered. “All this talk of medals… you deserve one for being a complete ass.”

Felix had done nothing but assist her in any way he possibly could, even picking up a gun for what Calhoun was sure was the first time in his life, and blasting that cy-bug to oblivion. He’d endured the first real injury in his entire stint at the arcade, too. He risked making a phenomenal idiot out of himself by telling her how he felt, and Calhoun had to admit, it was pretty brave of the little guy to be so bold. She was an intimidating woman, and he seemed fairly meek at their first meeting, but his sweet outer appearance had fooled her. He wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t clueless, and he wasn’t weak-willed at all. He was strong enough to stand up to her and insist that he help, and he’d proven invaluable. Without that help, her shuttle would’ve never gotten off the ground, and she wouldn’t be here, scouring halfway across the game’s world map for her lost cy-bugs.

She’d have to swallow her pride and apologize later, if they were both still alive at the end of this.

A loud and rapid beeping cut into Calhoun’s thoughts, and suddenly her tracker’s screen was covered in a multitude of tiny green dots. She blinked, wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her, but the dots did not disappear. She took another distracted step forward, and found herself plummeting through the thin crust of the ground towards a craggy patch of rocks. Long pieces of the licorice in the field above her draped through the hole, providing more than enough support. She latched onto a handful of them and held on for dear life, grunting at the force of her stop. Another closer look at what was below her made her breathe a tiny sigh of relief. If not for her quick reflexes, she would’ve been impaled on a bunch of peanut brittle stalagmites, and it would’ve been the end.

The shaft of light produced by her impromptu entryway lit up a small portion of the cavern that lay spread out before her, and highlighted her tracker’s rapid descent. When it struck the ground, she could hear the faint rustling of claws and wings, and in seconds the cavern began to illuminate with a familiar acid green.

She’d found the cy-bugs’ nest, and it was big.

Larger cy-bugs, fully mature, were crawling around the hundreds - thousands? - of eggs that lined the floor, their claws careful not to crush any of the larvae. All of them sported the same candy shells as the others from earlier, but here there was a more varied collection of sweets. Green taffy, chocolate crackers, candy canes, shortbread and strawberries… they’d been busy. Thankfully none of them noticed her sudden intrusion.

A hulking cy-bug stalked by just then, gently sweeping its tails through the eggs that continued to light up. Its shell was yellow and purple, swirled, and shiny, similar to the taffy trees she’d spotted near the cliff side. No doubt that this was the little hatchling that escaped with Ralph. Had the leader of this swarm really been right under their feet? Calhoun wished she could fire off a shot, but knew it would only end in bloody disaster. Instead, she wrapped part of the licorice around her fist and began her climb towards the open hole above her.

She broke into a sprint the moment she had solid ground under her boots, intent on marking this location and setting out to find some help as soon as she possibly could. Taking on this many cy-bugs was suicide, and she needed to alert the Sugar Rush locals. They had an apocalypse on their hands, and she was going to help them either prepare for battle, or evacuate and destroy the place. Whichever worked out first.

-

It was a strange request, Felix thought. Fix this kart, Ralph said. He even dumped a waste bin’s contents onto the floor of his cell, which looked more like the remains of a candy bowl after Halloween than a kart. He was feeling bitter, and he couldn’t hide the confusion that sprang up on his features as the bizarre sight met his eyes.

“This was a kart?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Yes, but I… I broke it. Please, Felix, you have to fix it. Please. We’ve gotta get Vanellope out of this place and back in that race!”

The name was unfamiliar, but the desperation in Ralph’s voice was plenty to convince Felix that this was important. He’d never seen his colleague this upset about anything in 30 years, so it was certainly saying something. Felix had plenty he wanted to say to the man, but he'd hold off for now. Might as well do what he did best.

“All right, let’s see what I can do.”

It was a much easier fix than the shuttle, but as Felix pieced the broken chunks back together, he could see Ralph getting more and more impatient out of the corner of his eye. Not that he blamed him. Felix was just as set on getting out of prison, and the gaping hole in the wall to freedom was very tempting.

"Do you have any idea what you put me through today, Ralph?"

"Uh-"

"I had to run all over creation looking for you," said Felix, aggravated. "I almost got eaten by a cy-bug! I bled for the first time because of you!"

That last one seemed to startle Ralph a bit, but Felix wasn't about to let him get a word in. He'd kept his unpleasant feelings at bay, but now they were rapidly bubbling to the surface.

"Do you know what that's like? Bleeding, Ralph! And it's not red. It's all... blue, and a mishmash of numbers and codes and-" Felix shuddered. "You're lucky you've never seen that! It's horrible! And it hurts!"

If Felix had been looking, he would've seen the genuine surprise dawning on Ralph's face. His tiny rival had never shown such strong negative emotion.

"I met a wonderful gal, too. She- oh, Ralph, she was perfect. Smart, beautiful, tall, strong… but she... she told me to get lost. And then I was thrown in here! I never got a reason why. I was just pushed aside and treated like a criminal, and..." Felix faltered, his voice wavering. "And..."

The room went very quiet.

"...and that's every day of my life."

Felix looked up from the kart's broken pieces.

"What?"

Ralph just gave a light shrug, paired with a small expression that read, 'I told you so.'

"But everyone else, they always said..."

The Nicelanders always put up a façade of, well, niceness when it came to Ralph. They could be a little bit standoffish at times, but he’d never seen them be outright cruel before their awkward exchange at the 30th anniversary party. Ralph had never mentioned anything, either. He was too polite to do such a thing, apparently. The guilt instantly began to eat at Felix’s insides, but he was determined to make things right. He’d start with repairing the broken kart, and go from there. He’d have a talk with the Nicelanders if- when - they got home, and he’d make sure that nothing like this ever happened again. Ralph was his colleague, his rival, his friend- and he wasn’t going to stand for bad behavior being committed behind his back. It was embarrassing, coming to this realization after so long, but Felix was only programmed to be human. He made plenty of mistakes, and sometimes he could be just plain ignorant. He wasn't an egotistical man, but he could get just as wrapped up and lost in his own goings-on as anyone else. The only difference was that he was really good at fixing those mistakes, and learning from them in the end.

"Oh my land. I... I'm so sorry, Ralph."

Ralph kneeled, picking up a piece of the kart. "I guess it's hard for you to even think that somebody was being a jerk to me. Always looking for the best in people."

"I do try to stay on the positive side. ...I swear, nothing like this is ever going to happen to you again," said Felix determinedly. "Not while my name is still Fix-It Felix, Jr."

Soon the shattered kart was taking proper shape again, and with the last few taps of his hammer, the remaining powder and flakes from the sprinkles and chocolate zipped back into place. Ralph cheered and scooped Felix up off the floor without warning, placing him on his shoulder like a parrot. Felix would have protested, but the giant of a man took off at an alarming speed, forcing the little handyman to simply hold on tight.

“Where’s this Vanellope you keep talking about?” Felix asked, raising his voice over the crashing brown sugar bricks and breaking hallway doors.

“Somewhere called the ‘fungeon,’” Ralph replied, grabbing onto a wall corner to turn abruptly. Felix nearly toppled off of his shoulder, only just barely hanging on with one hand. “That kooky king said it was a ‘fun dungeon’ or whatever. What a nut.”

A fun dungeon? Who on earth would call a dungeon fun?

“Ralph, after we do this, we have to find the sergeant!”

“What?”

“Sergeant Calhoun! She… we need to get together as a group!”

“Yeah, okay, sure. But only after we get Vanellope to that racetrack!”

Unable to get further responses from Ralph, Felix shrugged and ducked down as they passed through a low hanging archway. Soon enough, they reached a mint-colored wall - was that peppermint chocolate? - with more of those cookie guards stationed outside. Felix quickly hopped off of Ralph’s shoulders, fully intending on avoiding collateral bodily harm from his rampage.

The cookie guards were no match for him, and soon what was left of the mint bricks were covered in dark crumbs and white filling. Felix was sure this was a horrible, gruesome scene to any of the other candy people living here, but to him it looked somewhat tasty. He hadn’t paid much attention to his stomach since he was thrown into his prison cell, but now he could feel a persistent gnawing inside. Oh, how he wished he could have a piece of piping hot pie.

“Ralph?” Felix heard a tiny voice say. He curiously peered beyond Ralph’s wide shoulders into the ‘fungeon,’ spotting a tiny girl wrapped up in a ludicrous amount of dark chocolate chains.

A klaxon blared to life above them somewhere, and Felix clamped his hands over his ears.

“Ralph, we need to get moving!” he shouted, motioning to the door nearest him with sunlight pouring through.

Ralph was busy snapping the chains effortlessly, and as soon as the massive chocolate lock crumbled away in his hands, the little girl - Vanellope - sprinted away from her prison pedestal. She zipped right into the driver’s seat of the tiny kart, seemingly in awe over the fact that her vehicle was once again in one piece. She jumped up and bumped her tiny fist against Ralph’s massive hand.

“Ralph!” Felix shouted again. He hated to disrupt a happy moment, but he could hear the sound of falling footsteps not far from them.

“Right, right, sorry,” Ralph quickly said, settling onto the back of the kart. It sagged under his weight, but did not buckle. “Ready, Vanellope?”

“Let’s go, stink brain.” The engine revved to life.

Just as the far doors banged open, Felix was plucked from the floor and seated on the wafer spoiler, and it took off like a shot. He kept one hand on his hat and the other clamped tightly on the spoiler, hardly believing that this tiny little girl could be such a skilled driver. Vanellope masterfully executed a power slide around the long sweeping turn of a hallway, slipping past the guards and blowing a raspberry in her wake. Felix saw a few of them do a double-take, clearly stumped by what they’d just seen. He couldn’t blame them, really. If someone told him about what was happening right now, he probably wouldn’t have believed them, either.

“So who’s your friend?” Vanellope yelled over the noise.

“Oh!” Ralph motioned back and forth between the two smaller folks. “Vanellope, Fix-It Felix, Jr. Felix, Vanellope von Schweetz.”

Vanellope stole a very quick glance over her shoulder at Felix, then smiled. “Nice t’meetcha, buddy. But you better be nice to Ralph from now on! I heard about all that awful stuff you did!”

Felix balked, just a little bit offended, but Ralph stepped in.

“No, no, Vanellope- that was the Nicelanders. Felix just didn’t know it was happening, with them all over his case every day to fix this, and fix that… he’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”

Ralph shot Felix an appreciative smile, and Felix happily returned the sentiment.

“Well all right, if you say so!”

Vanellope turned the corner, shifting gears as the wheels spun underneath them. At the end of a stretch in front of them were the castle gates, and the path was wide open.

“Punch it!”

Her licorice-soled boot hit the floor, and the kart rocketed forward. Vanellope let out a shriek of laughter as they zoomed past the remaining cookie guards, blasted through the gates, and hurtled down the castle’s front pathway, leaving clouds of cocoa dust behind them.

“So long, suckers!” Ralph shouted back at the castle.

They ramped off of a rise in the pathway, and Felix was starting to feel the adrenaline kick in. He wasn’t much of a daredevil by any stretch of the imagination, and this had to be the most insane thing he’d ever done, but it was exciting. As they sped towards the raceway, Felix gave a whoop and a holler, getting looks from both Ralph and Vanellope. But they both joined in, the triumphant cheer rather infectious.

A distinct thundering rumble sounded above them, and Felix jerked his head up to the sky. The sergeant’s shuttle was heading in the same direction as they were. Felix felt his stomach twist in all sorts of unpleasant ways, hoping that he’d at least be able to apologize for going over the top earlier.

“Whoa, what’s with the doomsday rocket?” Vanellope asked, glancing up at the shuttle every few yards. “Didn’t you crash that thing into the cliff? Which was a pretty cool crash, by the way, never got to say that.”

Ralph turned to look at Felix, and Felix felt very much like shrinking into the ground.

“I uh… the sergeant and I fixed it.”

“Sergeant?” Vanellope butted in again. “Another friend of yours?”

“I… well, I don’t know if I’d call her a friend-”

“Oooh, a lady friend?” Vanellope teased.

Ralph snorted, and Felix sputtered inarticulately. “No, she’s just- I didn’t-”

“Uh huh. Whatever you say, mini-man.”

“Now wait just a minute!” Felix finally said clearly. “You should be nicer to your elders, little missy.”

“Don’t even try, Felix,” said Ralph after Vanellope dismissively laughed at the handyman’s command.

The starting line finally came into view in front of them, and Felix was glad to be off the jerky little kart. As soon as the gummy worm wheels touched the track, he and Ralph slipped off, lightening the load for Vanellope. She sped away with a blast of sugary exhaust, and the scoreboard that towered over the stands flashed her name in last place. Felix watched the cameras pan across the racers on the jumbotron for a few moments before turning to talk to Ralph, but someone else beat him to the punch- literally.

Ralph was on the ground, dazed, and Calhoun stood there menacingly, her hand curled into a fist. One punch, and she managed to floor a beastly guy like Ralph.

What a woman.

“M’lady!” Felix blurted before he could stop himself. “You came back!”

“Can it, Fix-It,” Calhoun barked, then turned her attention back to Ralph. “Do you have any idea what kind of mess we’re in? What kind of danger you’ve put all these people in? What kind of hard-headed, self-centered disaster this is? All because you had to go and get a shiny medal, and a cy-bug hitched a ride on your shuttle - a stolen shuttle, I might add.”

Ralph rubbed his jaw, and Felix heard an unpleasant pop as he moved it back into place. “Hey, relax, that cy-bug drowned in a taffy lake. It’s not a problem anymore!”

As if on cue, a tremor rippled through the area, followed by a deafening boom. A horrible buzzing met their ears as a fountain of cy-bugs surged up from the ground behind the candy stands, pouring into the sky and spreading in all directions. Calhoun pulled her rifle from her back and charged it, fixing Ralph with a poisonous glare.

“Bullshit.”

Felix stared up at the cy-bugs, wide-eyed. This was way more than he was ever prepared to deal with, help from the sergeant or not. He defensively clutched the arm the cy-bug had punctured earlier, a shiver coursing down his back. He did not want to repeat those events if he could help it.

“Fix-It.”

He whirled to face the sergeant, who pressed a pistol into his hands. It must have come from the ship as an emergency weapon, as the holster on her thigh still contained her own sidearm.

“Keep it close, watch your head, and take those bugs down.”

Calhoun removed the cruiser from her back and stood atop the device to give her some extra height before addressing the crowd.

“All right, people, this party’s over. Everyone to the exit, on the double!”

Felix gripped the pistol tightly and eyed the cy-bugs. They settled on attacking the surrounding buildings and candy for the time being, rather than the world’s citizens. He fired a shot at one of the low-flying bugs, and it struck the beast square in the wings. It tried to keep itself aloft with its remaining wings, but failed spectacularly. Ralph was quick to smash the creature to bits after it crashed, and repeated the action for each cy-bug Felix brought down.

Calhoun was much more efficient, knowing just where to strike the beasts with her rifle’s burst rounds. Felix tried to emulate her, darting over to the downed bugs to examine where her bullets pierced their shells. Just behind their jaws, right under their head mechanism… it was tucked back and out of sight, making the repeated bulls-eye shots something to be admired. He was willing to try, but the spastic movements of his targets made aiming very difficult.

“Hold still, you-” Felix started to mumble, but a solid force struck his side, sending him flying. His finger pressed down on the trigger automatically, and the shot pinged off the underside of Calhoun’s cruiser before it found its way to another cy-bug that had been advancing on her south.

“Hey! Watch where y-” Calhoun started, but gasped when she saw the cause of the misfire: one of the larger cy-bugs was pursuing Felix, intent on snapping him up while he lay on his side. She quickly unloaded a few burst rounds into the machine, and it toppled over, lifeless. “You all right, soldier?”

“Not dead yet, ma’am,” Felix breathed, trying to keep up his smile.

“I told you, it’s Miss Calhoun to you. Keep it up.”

As she sped away to help guide the Sugar Rush denizens to safety, Felix felt all the knots in his stomach undo themselves. She… wasn’t mad at him? He thought for sure that she would’ve hated him, but she didn’t-

A cy-bug’s head exploded somewhere behind him to his left, startling him. Calhoun’s rifle was smoking from her shot.

“Watch your back, Fix-It! I gave you that pistol for a reason!”

Oh. Right. They were in the middle of a fight. He’d celebrate later.

A quick jump to the top of the racetrack’s banner gave him a much better vantage point, and a clearer range for firing. He was more open and vulnerable on such a high point, but he could take a few risks. It was his job to help fix this mess, and he was going to find the best possible way to reach that goal.

Soon the level track was clear of the sugar folk, and Calhoun appeared over the top of the banner. She made a motion for Ralph and Felix to follow her up the rainbow-striped candy road towards the portal out of Sugar Rush, all while shooting down more cy-bugs. Felix made a move to hop aboard her cruiser, but paused when he caught a glimpse of the situation unfolding on the jumbotron. Ralph stared up at the screen as well, distressed and tight-lipped, eyes glued to Vanellope’s kart.

Whoever this King Candy was, Felix had disliked him immediately. Throwing him in prison without reason was bad enough, but seeing the so-called king’s actions up on screen left a bitter taste in his mouth. What kind of adult bullied a child? As far as Felix could tell, Vanellope was just an innocent little girl, but she was being treated like she was some sort of abomination. She was handling herself very well on the road, only stuttering a few times with her strange glitching behavior, until King Candy apparently had enough, and full-on rammed his kart into hers.

“What is he doing?” Felix gasped, a hand going to his mouth.

He watched the two tug back and forth on the striped gearshift from the king’s kart, and noticed something peculiar. Vanellope glitching wasn’t news to him anymore, but the red pixelated glitching on King Candy was. Why in the world would his code be having a fit? Was he really so distraught by the idea of being beaten by a little girl?

No, that wasn’t it. Felix squinted, staring hard at the image. Something was wrong. Really wrong… and there it was: a near-skeletal face showing through the rapid glitching on King Candy’s.

The bottom dropped out of Felix’s stomach. It couldn’t be who he thought it was. He had to be seeing things. There was no possible way-

“Ralph, look!” he called out, pointing to the screen.

Just as he did, the red pixels cleared, leaving a plain view of a red and white racing jumpsuit, gray skin, and bright yellow eyes.

“No way,” Felix heard Ralph say low under his breath.

An icy claw gripped Felix’s heart. He wondered if Ralph was remembering that day as clearly as he was.

“What’s Turbo doing in Road Blasters?” he remembered the kids asking. They were close enough to Fix-It Felix, Jr. for him to get an earful. He distinctly recalled taking a brick to the head at that moment, for the player had stopped paying attention to his screen and neglected to move him out of the way in time.

“Whoa, what’s going on? I think he’s crashing the game!”

“Mr. Litwak! Something’s up with the game!”

If it weren’t for operating hours, Felix knew everyone would’ve stopped dead in their tracks to stare at the debacle unfolding in front of them. The screen of Road Blasters went haywire, becoming a tangled mess of garbage data. That was a full-on crash, and it’d knocked the poor racers inside out of the running for good. As far as everyone knew, Turbo went down in that horrible blaze of ‘glory’ as well, but now…

“How in land sakes did Turbo get into Sugar Rush?” said Felix, mouth hanging wide open. He still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

The camera panned away from the two racers just as Vanellope glitched herself to safety, leaving them to wonder. Felix shook his head, hoping for the best, and turned to speak with the sergeant.

“Is everybody almost out?”

“Getting there,” she replied. “We’ve gotta start bottlenecking these bugs before it gets overrun.”

“Ralph!” Felix yelled down at his colleague. “Miss Calhoun says we have to move!”

“Not without Vanellope!” Ralph shot back immediately, now facing the last stretch of the track before the finish line. “She’ll be here in just a minute. She’s gonna finish this race, reset the game, and get back to where she really belongs.”

Calhoun hovered in place without a word, obviously out of the loop. Felix wasn’t clued in to every detail, either, so all he could do was shrug at her.

“Keep your eye out for her,” the sergeant finally said.

Her cruiser kept close to Felix’s position, and they both watched the skies for more cy-bugs. Most of them had moved on to higher structures, but a few stragglers were still hanging about.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Felix heard Calhoun say quietly. “There were more in the nest… where are they?”

“More?” Felix said, distress obvious in his voice. “How much more?”

“A lot more than we can handle, soldier.”

“And you’re all right? They didn’t get to you, did they?”

Felix wished he could take back his words. He was legitimately concerned for her, but he was afraid he’d stepped right back into that circle of hate that Calhoun drew into the sand around her. He was close enough for her to punch, just like she did to Ralph, so he braced for any possible impact.

“No, I’m fine. When I fell into the nest, they didn’t notice me. Got out of there unscathed.”

“You fell in? Oh my goodness, how did you-”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Well… all right. But I’m glad you made it out okay.”

“…thanks, soldier.”

Felix smiled hesitantly at her, unsure of what to say next. Calhoun, surprisingly, seemed similarly at a loss for words, and the silence hung awkwardly between them. The familiar revving of Vanellope’s kart came back into earshot a moment later, providing a much-needed interruption.

“Come on, kid! You can make it! The finish line’s wide open!”

A tremor shocked the ground and rattled the banner, jostling Felix from his perch. He reached to grab the banner, but instead found purchase on the sergeant’s arm. She didn’t seem to mind, only concerned with the source of the quake.

“Please tell me that’s not the rest of the nest.”

Streams of cy-bugs burst forth all around the racetrack, some of them dangerously close to Vanellope’s kart. Felix heard her yelp in fear, and his heart tugged. It was important for her to cross that line, but he didn’t want her to get hurt trying. He nimbly leaped down from the banner, ready to run as soon as she crossed the checkered tiles, but his fear abruptly became reality as a fountain of cy-bugs sent poor Vanellope’s kart careening into the sidelines.

Ralph was already on his way to help her, with Felix close behind. He gripped his hammer, ready to provide the necessary repairs, but the deafening screeches from the cy-bugs told him there wouldn’t be enough time.

“But I have to cross the finish line!” he heard Vanellope say as he approached.

“Kid, there is no finish line.”

Felix looked back and nearly dropped his hammer. Cy-bugs were swarming all over the banner where he’d been only moments before, crushing bits of it into food for their hungry metal mouths.

“And we have to go.”

Felix couldn’t agree more.

Calhoun ushered them away from the main swarm, with her and Felix cutting a path through those still scuttling along the track. The road and tiles were quickly torn up under their slicing jaws, and those who were shot down were almost immediately replaced by more.

“Faster, soldier,” warned Calhoun. “Wreck-It, keep going up to the top. We’ll clear out some of the bugs down here.”

She motioned at Felix to hop on the back of her cruiser. He climbed aboard and was handed a new magazine for his pistol. Ralph and Vanellope took off up the slope, and Felix could only just hear Vanellope say something about it ‘not going to work.’ What wouldn’t work?

“I told you they were like a virus,” Calhoun said, her voice oddly calm.

“This is all so horrible.” Felix stared out over the landscape after firing off a few shots. “There’s so many… is there any way to stop them?”

“In here? Not likely.”

The cruiser lurched forward and rapidly swerved out of reach of the snapping cy-bugs. Felix crouched to grab the edge of the board, steadying his position.

“What stops them in Hero’s Duty?”

“A beacon. It fires up every time the game’s over, and it draws them in. Zaps ‘em into a fine plasma.”

Felix gulped. “Sounds painful.”

“No, it’s quick. Not quick enough, if you ask me… but it gets the job done.”

An unpleasant click came from Calhoun’s pistol. She was out of ammo. Growling, she stuck it back in its holster and retrieved her rifle to keep firing.

“What happens when we run out?” Felix asked, gesturing towards his gun.

“Then we blow the entrance.”

“What?”

“You see that?”

She pointed to a small spherical object protruding from her belt.

“A few of those will take care of it.”

“We can’t just blow this place up!”

Calhoun sighed. “Look, Fix-It, I know it’s tough, but we might have to. If you get gangrene, you’re not gonna keep the limb and let it poison you.”

“Ralph and Vanellope have to know.”

“Then let’s go tell them.”

Again they were speeding towards the cherry-topped peak that concealed the exit to Game Central Station. A peculiar sight was waiting for them at the end, and frantic dialog was being exchanged between Vanellope and Ralph.

“..-stop! It’s not going to work! I can’t leave.”

“We have to try!”

Felix had never seen the portals behave this way. A burst of blue light surged towards Vanellope as she approached the invisible wall again and again, blocking her progress each time. She banged against it with her fists, kicked it with the toe and bottom of her boots, and even charged at it full-force with her shoulder. Each attempt was thwarted, leaving her in a defeated heap at the divide.

She couldn’t leave the game.

“Miss Calhoun…” Felix started, his voice hushed.

“I know,” the sergeant cut him off grimly. She angled the cruiser down and stopped near the duo, plucking one of the devices from her belt. It expanded in her palm, and she began pressing tiny buttons on its side panel.

“What is that?” Ralph inquired, pointing at the object.

“Emergency grenade. We’re going to have to blow this entrance if we want to keep the cy-bugs contained.”

Felix shut his eyes tight after he stepped off the cruiser, not wanting to hear the dismal explanation again, or the furious protests from Ralph. It was bad enough before, but now that he realized just what was at stake…

“-out a beacon, we can’t stop them.”

It was like a light bulb had gone off in Ralph’s head, judging by his expression. In a blink he’d taken Calhoun’s place atop the cruiser.

“I’ll be right back. Hang on, and Vanellope, stay with Felix!”

What in the- where was he going?

“Ralph, wait!”

But that was that.

Calhoun exhaled sharply, frustrated, but delayed her setting of the grenade’s timer. A nasty hiss jarred her from her thoughts, and she barked for Vanellope to stay behind her.

“Aim for the eyes. If we can blind them, it can buy us some time.”

Felix’s hands were shaking again, making it difficult to aim. He only had two of the magazines left that Calhoun handed off to him, so he had to make them count. Whatever Ralph had in mind, Felix hoped he could get it done in time, or…

Vanellope, previously sassy and sarcastic, now looked frightened beyond words. She gravitated towards Calhoun at first, but quickly learned to stay out of the sergeant’s way as she darted around, firing ahead. Felix guessed the older female presence was something the girl was drawn to, but Calhoun hardly presented herself as maternal.

“Vanellope,” Felix spoke up, catching her attention. “Come on over here, sweetheart.”

He was sure that if she were in her usual mood, she would’ve scoffed at his use of the word ‘sweetheart,’ but made no such teasing remarks now. Felix held out his hand tentatively for her, she took it, and his breath hitched when he realized how badly she was trembling. He couldn’t imagine being trapped inside his own game with such a danger, but that was her reality.

“Don’t let go of my hand, okay?”

Vanellope nodded, stubbornly wiping her sleeve across her eyes. Scared as she was, Felix knew that kids still hated to let people see them cry. “Okay.”

He squeezed her hand reassuringly before turning his attention back to the cy-bugs. It was much more difficult to aim and fire with one hand, and after a few shots, he decided to keep the remaining bullets in case the bugs drew nearer. Holstering the pistol in his belt, he brought his other arm around to try and comfort Vanellope more, but she beat him to it, latching onto him like cling film. Felix blinked, surprised at the sudden display, but returned the embrace, holding her close.

“Ralph’s usually good at breaking things,” said Felix, “but he’s going to fix this right up.”

A brief lull in the action allowed for Calhoun to look back at them as Felix spoke.

“And we’ll stay here as long as we can. We’re not going to leave you here. Ralph won’t leave you here.”

Vanellope balled her hands into fists, gripping Felix’s overshirt. “But he’ll die, too, if he stays.”

Felix winced. “I… I know, but he still won’t leave.”

She buried her face into the crook of Felix’s neck. The candy bits stuck in her hair brushed against his cheek, and he could feel her tiny frame - not much smaller than his own, really - shaking as she tried to hold in a sob. He gently petted her hair, hoping any gesture would be comforting.

“Fall back, Fix-It,” said Calhoun suddenly. “We’re almost out of time.”

She pointed to the ammo counter on her rifle. It was dangerously low.

“Still got that pistol?”

Felix nodded before backing up a few paces with Vanellope. The rounds from her rifle fired off too rapidly for his liking, and soon the three of them found themselves with no means of protection aside from a puny pistol, and waves of hungry cy-bugs crawling towards them. Calhoun stood protectively beside them, her grenade in her hand. They backed up slowly until Felix heard the same strange surging noise from the barrier, and suddenly Vanellope’s hand was torn from his grip.

“Felix!” she choked, hands flat on the barrier.

He was at a loss. Nothing to fix. Vanellope stared at him with her wide eyes, terrified, and there was absolutely nothing he could do.

“What in Sam Hill is that up there?”

Calhoun pointed up to the sky, where a massive cy-bug had plucked Ralph from the top of the cola mountain in the distance. It carried him quite a ways into the air, and as soon as Vanellope saw this, she called out for him so loudly that her voice cracked.

Then the cy-bug dropped him.

“Ralph, NO!”

Vanellope was gone in a blink - literally. Her form crackled with data and raw code, and suddenly she was six yards down the track above the cy-bugs. Felix gaped at the display, never having seen anything like it. Again she disappeared and reappeared, now an impossible distance down the road.

“Keep those off me while I get this ready,” Calhoun said tersely.

Felix drew the pistol once again, but a daring cy-bug was too fast for him. It lunged forward and knocked the grenade from Calhoun’s hand, latching onto her armor in its titanium jaws.

“Oh no you don’t!” Felix cried out, leaping atop the bug’s metal casing. He pulled his hammer from his belt and, instead of striking the machine, dug its sharp prongs into the space between the cy-bug’s plating and LCD screen eyes. The fragile covering broke easily, giving him leverage, and with all the strength he could muster, he popped the plating right off of the bug’s head. The inner workings were ugly, and Felix was more than happy to put a bullet in it.

Immediately Calhoun’s arm was released, and the bug shuddered to a halt before tipping over and sliding off the side of the road. Felix hopped off just as the bug fell away, landing next to the sergeant. She was staring at him, apparently impressed.

“Think you can do that again?”

“I’d rather not,” he panted, “but I sure can.”

He handed off the pistol, then jumped atop another cy-bug to repeat his actions. Doing this all again was harder than he thought it would be, but he had to do it. For himself, for Ralph, for Vanellope, and for the sergeant. He buried the prongs of his hammer into another cy-bug eye, and tugged with all his might. The plate came loose with a loud pa-king! and clanged to the ground. Off went a round from the pistol, and Felix moved on to another cy-bug. A claw just barely clipped his leg as he jumped to his next target, and he bit back a scream. It burned just as his arm had, but he couldn’t give up. He’d keep going as long as Calhoun had a bullet to follow, even if that meant only a dozen or so bugs would be dropped. It still made a difference.

“I’m out!”

Felix retreated as soon as he heard her voice, ignoring the stinging in his lower leg. He stood close to the sergeant, heart pounding, ready to bolt… but the cy-bugs stopped. A low droning noise resonated through the air, and their eyes turned a bright blue. Off in the distance, a massive tower of bright golden-brown liquid was shooting into the air from the top of the cola mountain, giving off enough light to illuminate the devastated candy world. Almost like…

“A beacon.”

The cy-bugs took to the air in a massive cloud, all heading towards the shaft of light. One by one, they were vaporized in a burst of plasma until not a single beast was left, and the skies were finally clear. A small flicker of blue light towards the center of the mountain caught Felix’s eye, and he heard two distinct screams and a car’s engine from the shape that emerged. Whatever those two had done, it worked.

“Yahoo!” Felix blurted, unable to keep his immense relief and joy to himself. “Way to go, brother! HAH! No more cy-bugs!”

He sprang up into the air several times reflexively, waving his hammer and cap around triumphantly above his head. He stuck them both back in their respective places, then, in his giddiness, took a chance: he jumped up to the sergeant’s height and planted a kiss on her cheek. She gasped and her eyes opened wide.

Felix went stiff as a board, the heaviness of what he’d just done suddenly washing over him. When the sergeant’s hands took hold of his shirt and yanked him up to her eye level, he was sure he was going to get the pummeling of his life. Calhoun’s eyes stared into him like a wolf would stare at a wild rabbit, and then she kissed him.

Kissed.

Right on the mouth.

Felix thought for a moment he’d already been beaten senseless and was hallucinating, but no, sergeant Tamora Calhoun was kissing him. And boy, what a kiss. Once he’d fully realized what was happening, he held the side of her face and deepened said kiss, enjoying the warm spike that shot from his mouth down to the pit of his stomach. It was positively electric, almost intoxicating. Maybe the high definition was just too much for his old-fashioned bits, but at the moment, he couldn’t care less what the negative side effects of that dynamite kiss were.

Calhoun pulled him away from her, parting them with a tiny pop of their lips. Felix hung lazily in her grip, dazed and red-faced.

“Golly,” he breathed, too stunned to come up with anything more complex.

“Pull yourself together, soldier,” Calhoun teased.

“I’ll try,” Felix sighed dreamily. “But if you do that again, I swear I’ll melt right out of your hands.”

“You don’t say.”

“Well, I-” Felix was cut off by a second kiss, this one just as wonderful as the last, and it took every ounce of self-control he had not to let a happy sigh slip past. He draped his arms over her shoulders and pressed his weight to her, lost in the haze inside his mind. To both his relief and annoyance, Calhoun seemed perfectly aware of the effect she had on him, so she was merciful enough to release him and set him back on his feet. Felix wobbled slightly, but stood up straight.

“Jiminy Christmas, Miss Calhoun.”

She smiled slyly and appeared quite satisfied. “Just keep that honey glow under control, soldier, and we can get this show on the road.”

Felix tipped his cap down to hide his face. Calhoun snorted, and he smiled despite his embarrassment. 

“Come on, Fix-It," she said. "Let’s take a walk and let that flush clear out.”

When the four of them reunited on the track, Ralph and Vanellope were sopping wet, covered in liquid chocolate. They didn’t seem the least bit bothered, however, especially Vanellope. Her whole body was crackling with energy as she darted towards her downed kart, eagerly shouting for Felix to hurry up and fix it. ‘It’ referred to most of the track by this point, which was a fairly daunting task, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Vanellope’s patience was another matter entirely. She hovered over his shoulder, watching him tap the red and white checkered blocks back into place. He heard her give a low 'oooh' as he worked, followed by a string of curious questions.

“Hey, so, why are you so short compared to Ralph? Don’t you guys come from the same game? And how come your hammer can do that, aren’t they supposed to just put in nails and stuff?”

She yanked his hat away and placed it on top of her own head, then a glitch took her to the top of the downed raceway banner.

“And who’s the cool lady in the armor? Is that the sarge? Ooh, is she your girlfriend? She’s really pretty. I bet she could totally kick your molasses!”

Felix looked up at Ralph, who was close to tears from trying not to laugh. Calhoun was getting a kick out of the scene as well, but was doing a much better job of hiding it. The two were pulling the damaged kart out of the sidelines, prepping it for Vanellope’s final stretch to victory.

“D’you want me to answer those separately, or all at once?” asked Felix sarcastically. Vanellope’s game of 20 questions was strangely endearing, if a bit grating.

“Felix?” Ralph pointed at the kart, and while it wasn’t anywhere near the level of disastrous it had been earlier, it was still in some pretty sorry shape.

“You sure know how to cause a lot of trouble,” said Felix, giving him an exasperated grin.

“Well… y’know… it’s my job to wreck things.”

Vanellope was back on the ground with them, and she playfully shoved Felix’s hat back onto his head before slapping her hands on the side of the kart. “Come on, let’s do it! I can taste sweet, sweet victory.”

A few taps from the hammer, and the kart was back to normal. Vanellope wasted no time getting into the driver’s seat, and instead of turning the ignition, Ralph simply gave her a push that sent her neatly over the repaired finish line. The tiles lit up square by square as the tires touched them, followed by an unexpected burst of spiraling light that rushed out in all directions. Felix squinted at the brightness, and when his vision returned, he noted that all of the surrounding area was back to how it’d looked when he first arrived that morning.

“Goodness, what was tha…” he trailed off, struck by the sight now in front of him.

The light came from Vanellope, who was now clad in a frilly red, pink, and white dress. She bore a look of confusion, and Felix found it comforting that she was just as lost as the rest of them were.

The other racers and candy denizens were slowly trickling back into the stands, with some of the other racers stopping in front of Vanellope. Among them was the gobstopper man Felix saw at the castle gates, but now he had what appeared to be a sucker stuck to his back. He stepped forward and held his hands up towards Vanellope, speaking in that comically low voice.

“Now presenting our one true ruler, Princess Vanellope.”

“That little squirt’s a princess?” said Calhoun, first to break through the horrified murmurs of the crowd.

Felix scratched at his head under his cap. He wouldn’t have seen that one coming for miles.

“As your royal princess, I hereby decree… everyone who made fun of me shall be… executed.”

There were gasps from the crowd as Vanellope gave her first order, and Felix stared in horror. Calhoun, on the other hand, seemed plenty interested in what the tiny royal had to say.

“Oh, come on. I’m just kidding,” came Vanellope’s voice again, and the racers around her gave a collective sigh of relief.

“Kid’s got a sense of humor.”

“Yeah,” said Felix, still looking uneasy. “Hilarious.”

“So. Fix-It. We have a shuttle to retrieve. Let’s let them have their sappy moment.”

“How far to the shuttle?” Not that he actually minded. He was happy to have a bit of time with her that didn’t involve life-threatening circumstances or emotional outbursts.

“Just over that hill,” said Calhoun, pointing ahead of them.

It was silent for the rest of their walk, but there was a pleasant simplicity to it. Felix wanted to say something, but was having difficulty putting anything together. It was only after they’d popped the canopy on the shuttle that Calhoun spoke again, robbing him of the chance.

“Getting back to work after all this’ll make for a long day,” she said. “Have any ways to wind down after a hard shift?”

Felix paused, wondering if he’d heard her correctly.

“I… have a few things I like to do. ….I don’t suppose you’d like to find out what they are?”

“As long as you’re on time to pick me up, soldier.”

Holy hotcakes. A _date._

“Don’t you worry about that, Miss Calhoun. I’m always on the dot,” said Felix proudly. He was practically beaming.

The sergeant just smiled and hopped inside the shuttle, holding out a hand for Felix to grab. He could’ve easily cleared the jump himself, but of course he was going to take her hand instead. He settled into the same spot he’d taken before, but this time the atmosphere was considerably warmer.

“Don’t forget to patch up that leg,” said Calhoun, bringing Felix’s attention back to the comparatively tiny wound on his shin. He’d completely forgotten about it in his excitement, and wondered if any of the others had noticed.

As he gently tapped the injury away, a warmth blossomed in his chest. Even if the day had been an interesting ride, with trouble still needing to be resolved back home, Felix would say that it’d all been worth it.

His cap was suddenly pushed down over his face. He set it back into place, and saw a playful smirk on Calhoun’s face.

Definitely worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still angry that scene got cut. _Ugh._


End file.
